Burn Up the Light
by lorwell
Summary: She hates him, because he is arrogant. Because he is soft. Because she is born of ThunderClan blood to continue a long line of warriors, and he is a change that will set the whispering leaves to fire and make the forest shift its roots. A series of vignettes in which Sandstorm learns what it means to love a comet.
1. Chapter 1

The sky is blue and cloudless, the smell of prey is in the air, and the world she knows is fracturing like ice in the sun.

"That's not the scent of any clan _I _know!"

Bluestar stands on the Highrock, proud as ever, her strong shoulders blocking the green-leaf sun. By her side quivers a small orange cat, dwarfed by the leader in every way. His ears lay flat against his scalp, and the fur on his hackles rises under the cautious eyes of ThunderClan.

As it well should- Sandpaw recognises his smell at the moment Longtail calls it out.

"He's a kittypet!"

The rumbling of the crowd falls away with the abrupt drop of a hawk to its prey. Not even a hiss scores the silence- but Longtail presses on.

"Once a kittypet, always a kittypet." His tail lashes, and Sandpaw takes a step back. She's not the only one. Up high on the rock, the kittypet's eyes go even wider.

Longtail's voice rises again. "The noise of your treacherous bell will alert our enemies, even if your Twoleg stench doesn't!"

And the kittypet- she doesn't know how to describe it, but for a moment she sees it. He stands taller, and his eyes fill with something fierce, something proud- more intense in that flash than anything she's felt in her training fights so far- and he leaps.

Sandpaw finds herself backing away, farther and farther from the fight, though she cannot look away. Her father is out on patrol and she cannot see her mother in the crowd, and the dirt that she had rolled in as a kit is drinking ThunderClan blood. This is- it's not been done before. It's against the code. It's _wrong_.

And she cannot get the look in his eye out of her mind. It had been too much for a kittypet so small, an intrusion beyond anything she'd wanted to see. In his eyes she had seen that the rolling momentum of an avalanche in a moment, a declaration unintentional, its resolution porting with it the feeling of prophecy. She had seen the promise that challenge would meet its rightful end, in the dirt and bleeding as her clanmate is today. A shiver digs cold claws into her spine.

"From this day forward," Bluestar called, with a certainty that Sandpaw longs for, "until he has earned his warrior name, this apprentice will be called Firepaw, in honor of his flame-colored coat."

Sandpaw does not join in the hesitant cries of his new name. She instead makes her way to Dustpaw, who frowns at her approach.

"Can you believe this?" Dustpaw drawls. "That _kit_ thinks he's got what it takes to be a warrior? Has everyone here gone mouse-brained?"

Shaking her head, Sandpaw settles by his side and begins the monotonous process of grooming herself. Its repetition will settle her.

"I don't like it either," she says.

"And winning with a surprise move like that- it's not honorable at all!" Dustpelt wrinkles his nose in disgust. "He's already proven that he's not cut out for the code."

"I still can't believe that Longtail lost, though."

Dustpaw's eyes narrow. "He didn't _lose_," he argues. "Bluestar broke up the fight."

"Still-"

"_Still_, if they'd been in a fair fight, Longtail would've won, no doubt about it."

Sandpaw dips her head in acquiescence. "I just wonder how many fair fights there are," she murmured. "And-" recalling his his righteous, burning eyes, even brighter than his coat- "How to know if you're on the right side." Some part of her knows in that second that if he if he remains as he was today, one day she will follow him into battle. The thought comes sudden and disconcerting.

Ravenpaw bursts into camp like night darting over the mountains. "Redtail-" he gasps. "Redtail is dead!"

_No. _

Sandpaw catches the eye of the kittypet from across the clearing and she lays back her ears. "You're right, Dustpaw," she says, her voice thick with grief. "He'll never be a warrior." She stands and walks numbly to her mother's side.

This kittypet brings change on his back and now her father is dead; despite the irrationality of it all, she cannot help but feel in her bones that this is his fault.

It is then that Sandpaw decides that she hates him.

She hates him, because he is arrogant. Because he is soft. Because she is born of ThunderClan blood to continue a long line of warriors, and he is a change that will set the whispering leaves to fire and make the forest shift its roots.

She hates him so much that the stars could extinguish one by one, and the moon could dip into the mountains and never return, and still her loathing would burn so bright that it would be as day- she could hate him enough to burn up the night.

_And we'll see which flame eats the other. We'll see which one of us wins. _


	2. Chapter 2

Sandpaw's grief sits like an adder in her stomach, coiled and dangerous and ready to strike. Sometimes she can send it to sleep, but its scales are cold and its fangs are sharp, and it is only ever a matter of time until she finds that coldness again.

And time and time again, it's that kittypet that leads her to it.

ThunderClan is not so large that she can escape him easily. Avoidance is never an option, not even when she rushes out of camp so early and pushes her paws to stay out so late that her nest barely smells of her any more. She is always catching orange fur in the corner of her eye, and his scent alone lingering in the air is enough to make her nostrils flare. Somehow he is everywhere, and it means she cannot escape.

Thoughts of her father come unbidden. Firepaw's fur in the sun; Ravenpaw's wide, red-lined eyes; the body of her father wearing the mud of a whole territory and smelling less of him than of the ground. She cannot train. She cannot think. She cannot even sleep without the scent of kittypet sending her stomach lurching back to that day.

She's falling behind- and she knows it's because of him.

"The gathering is probably ending about now," Dustpaw mews, for once subdued as he picks at the feathers of a starling.

Sandpaw nods. "Probably."

"I'll bet it was boring."

Offering a half hearted smile, Sandpaw lays her head on her paws. "Maybe. Gatherings normally are. It's all just news."

"Not like when _we_ went to the gathering," Dustpaw urges. "It was so exciting! And I thought Riverclan was going to start tearing up the grass, they were clawing the ground so much when Bluestar called them out-"

"Yeah, it was great." Sandpaw cuts him off to stand, leaving an untouched mouse behind. "I'm going to bring this to the elders."

"I'm sorry- I didn't mean to...you know."

Sandpaw's stomach gives a growl, but she ignores it. "I haven't done enough hunting recently. You know the rules, elders and kits eat first."

"But they _have_ eaten- it's Greenleaf, Sandpaw!"

Dustpaw calls after her, but she's already gone. She hasn't felt hungry- _really_ hungry, in a while. And she's not lying, either. She's hunted like a badger recently, plodding around the woods on paws so heavy they could weigh down the sky.

She hadn't deserved to go to this gathering, and even Bluestar knew it- that's why their leader had selected the new apprentice trio over her and Dustpaw. Her life is cobweb dashed by rain, and she cannot bring herself to reweave it.

The gathering cats file into the camp. Sandpaw drops her mouse by the edge of the elder's den and starts towards her nest. They have nothing to say that interests her. Harsh voices, mistrustful, call some treason or other- but Sandpaw focus instead on her paws.

What would it take, she wonders, to go back to the way things were? To run through the forest with bounds that would but a rabbit to shame, and hunt in brilliant boldness? Maybe she could still turn things around, become a good warrior- maybe even deputy some day, like her father had been.

But these paws are sore, and her father's body is cold. She could run or fight like she had in the days she now longs for- her body has not grown weak in her wanderings-but the one thing she cannot bring herself to do is _care. _

Still, her ears prick when Bluestar leaps up to Highrock. It's habit.

And her eyes jump to that orange pelt at the base of it. Another habit, and this one harder to break.

"It is time we discussed the real threat to our Clan: Brokenstar," Bluestar declares. "We have already begun to prepare for an attack by ShadowClan. WindClan has gone. RiverClan has given hunting rights to ShadowClan warriors. ThunderClan stands alone."

The clan ripples with discomfort.

Sandpaw, on the other head, finds her ears tilting forward in interest.

"I shall travel to the Moonstone tomorrow," Bluestar announced. "The warriors of StarClan will give me the strength I need to lead ThunderClan through this dark time."

Bluestar mutters a word to Lionheart and pads into her den.

"Moonstone!" Dustpaw sidles up to her again, untenable in his attempts to cheer her up. "Every apprentice travels there before they become a warrior. Maybe we'll get to go with her!"

His eyes, springing bright with hope, drop in a moment to dejection. Sandpaw follows his gaze and the adder in her stomach writhes: Lionheart speaking to Firepaw and Graypaw both, and she can just make out the word 'moonstone.'

"I don't think we'll be going," Sandpaw says.

And suddenly she finds herself craving ferocity.

If the attack on Shadowclan becomes reality, then she will push with all her might to be allowed to fight; and if she is not, she will find a way. She does not need to prove herself to a clan that does not want her- but she will reveal the facade of Firepaw's loyalty. He might have the leader's favor for now, but he will never fight like a clanborn cat.

He does not know what it means to love a Clan. His blood means nothing to the forest. And Sandpaw will remind everyone of the lie that they have harbored in their clan- he will be gone, and she will be allowed to forget. She would rip each strand of fur from the backs of Shadowclan one by one if that's what it will take.

Sandpaw's claws flex into the ground. She turns to Dustpaw.

"I'm going to practice my fighting moves. Are you in?"

He gapes at her. "But it's past moonhigh."

"Doesn't matter to Shadowclan. Doesn't matter to me." She stalks off once more, this time with a new beast writhing in her- and it feels like grief, but it tastes like revenge, hot and fierce and hungry. Perhaps one day it will taste like forgiveness. "Are you coming?"


	3. Chapter 3

The thaw in Sandpaw is slow, and it does not come from Firepaw or Bluestar, or even the dutiful and spirited Dustpaw, always by her side. It comes from time. It comes from patience. And a little bit- it comes from love.

The ShadowClan battle is gone and nobody's plan, Sandpaw's least of all, stands tall as the dust settles.

Her sides heave, a long scratch tracing from one end of her flank to the other, and her back is map of missing the battle in missing fur, most of it probably still caught in ShadowClan's cowardly claws as they hightail it back to their camp.

It had all been out of nowhere, and it had been nothing like she had expected. In her mind battles were always won, and they were won well. She was always strong, and never backed away, and everything was glorious- in her dreams she never looked into the eyes of a warrior who had learned how to rend and tear and she never tasted blood upon their breath. Witnessing death is one thing; to wear it, another.

The clan is quiet now. What is there to say?

"This isn't my home," Ravenpaw whispers. "I'm not- this-" and he cannot finish his sentence, but Sandpaw understands.

ShadowClan had torn a hole in peace that will take many moons to patch, and the camp bears the tear like an elder bears greencough, frenzied and worn, a shadow of what it had been only a day ago. Change is becoming so swift in the forest that it dazes Sandpaw sometimes; she blinks and her father is dead. She blinks, and the camp is a ruin. She blinks, and their deputy lays bloodied upon the ground.

The wail Graypaw gives echoes in her head, familiar as the smell of a mother to her kits- the sound of unexpected grief.

"Lionheart is dead," Bluestar murmurs, and Graypaw runs to him.

One by one, the clan gathers to pay their respects. Sandpaw tries to muster the appropriate sentiment, the feelings for her lost deputy that a clanmate is supposed to have, but she can only feel loss, dulled by exhaustion and a deeper weariness that will not go away when she sleeps.

She is not the only one at Lionheart's body; others come and go, but Graypaw remains, his nose buried so deep into the deputy's fur that it is as if he believes that Lionheart's soul is buried there, hiding from the sun in the gold of his pelt. Lionheart does not need her nose or her heart- but she recognizes the look in Graypaw's eyes when they rise to meet hers, the pain and fury and emptiness in them, a bird that flies on the same wings as her own.

She settles down next to him and- perhaps to both of their surprises, begins to lick his fur.

Graypaw does not object.

Sandpaw is gentle with him. She runs her tongue over his pelt in soft, slow strokes. A rhythm. A reminder, a pressure to say that she is there. She reaches the base of his neck and pulls softly at a knot, and he closes his eyes for a moment as she works at it.

As the others come to pay their respects, there is many a sad glance cast at Graypaw; but the warriors do not understand. They have lost before. The first, the one that makes you realize what death means- there is nothing that comes between you and that chasmous grief.

Ravenpaw, though- his wide eyes catch Graypaw and Sandpaw can see the loss in them. He is always so afraid these days; she wonders if he has reason.

Ravenpaw takes up the spot on the other side of Graypaw. His black coat nestles against gray and Ravenpaw's long tail settles on Graypaw's shoulders.

And Dustpaw comes to her side; he always does. She feels a surge of affection for the apprentice that has stuck with her through all of this, who cares so much that he oversteps and stumbles, whose loyalty is fierce if hard to earn. That she was born with it is a privilege, and realization flushes through her.

Clan life is unfair. It's cruel. It is a travesty that Clan life can mean this- can bring grief that drags through you like winter clawing the land- but Clan is also this, as she laps at Graypaw's shaking pelt, and dustpaw's warmth presses to his side, as Ravenpaw rests his head next to Graypaw's and they all breathe in memory together. They are not kin, but Clan is connection, and she knows this in the part of her that she thought could only bear grief.

Thunderclan means something, and it is a something she loves. For a crystalline moment she understands her father, whose death felt so senseless. It hurts. But this is what it is to be Clan, and it is worth more than she can say.

Last in line is Firepaw.

He looks particularly shaken; not what he had expected when he had joined the clans, Sandpaw thinks. But this isn't what she expected, either, when she became an apprentice.

With trepidation, Firepaw gives a few quick, nervous licks to Lionheart's cooling fur.

He looks to the spot beside Ravenpaw, and it is clear that he wants to join his friends- though he does not know how, perhaps; he is an outsider despite himself, and Sandpaw doubts that will ever change. But Graypaw lifts his head and his eyes soften when they meet Firepaw's, and Sandpaw knows what she must do.

She stands in the guise of a stretch and catches Firepaw's gaze. She nods to the space on the other side of Ravenpaw. The words dry on her tongue, but Firepaw understands. He sits, and a breeze stirs Lionheart's scent into the air.

"I don't want to die."

Ravenpaw speaks the words that break the silence and immediately looks as if he regrets it.

"Me neither," Dustpaw says, voice small. "I thought I was going to back there. Their deputy had me cornered, and his claws…" he cannot finish his sentence.

"I felt like-" Graypaw can't even make it that far. He shudders.

"I don't want to die either. And I'm deciding now," Firepaw meows. "I won't."

The others go quiet, but Sandpaw understands.

"I'm deciding that I won't go down without a fight and I mean it," he declares. "Commit to living as you are, fully and without regret, and you won't die. I'm sure of it." He looks at others, that same light gleaming that so scared Sandpaw before. "We'll live to be elders and we'll scare the kits with our stories. We'll tell them about our trials, and our tragedies, and at the end, we'll whisper to them what kept us going through it."

"What's that?" Ravenpaw mews, a note of desperation in his voice.

"Our will. If we decide here- we can live forever."

"I decide to be fierce," Dustpaw declares. "I'll fight to defend my home as many times as it takes, as many losses as I'll have to bear."

"I decide to be honest," Ravenpaw pipes in. He doesn't elaborate, but Sandpaw sees resolution in his eyes.

"I decide to be playful." Graypaw looks at the ground. "Friendship is irreplaceable. I couldn't ever live in a cold world," he says.

"I decide to be kind, like ThunderClan has been for me. If someone is in need, I will never turn them down." Firepaw is resolute.

Finally, all eyes turn to Sandpaw. She hesitates; words of battle and blood brood on her tongue, ready to take to the sky as a resolution. She swallows them down.

"I decide to forgive." It is a different declaration than the others, she knows, but she feels it is right. A warm breeze blows through the camp, ruffling her fur and making the air taste of green once more. "Whatever the wound, I will heal. And I will make a softer day. We deserve a world that knows how to forgive."

Slowly, Graypaw's tense muscles soften under her tongue and his eyes lose the look of shock. He mourns until the moon is high in the sky, but they are all there- for once, they are young together, the apprentices of Thunderclan weeping together for what might have been, and, they know, if they are to become warriors- what inevitably will someday be.

Sandpaw does not know which of them will fall in battle, which to illness, and which to the old age that would one day take them all- but she knows that when they do, they will have their vigil.

And maybe Firepaw is right, Sandpaw thinks- if ThunderClan will live forever, so will she.


	4. Chapter 4

Sandpaw is trying. She hadn't realized, before, how much _trying_ went into every day. She can feel the tally mounting, the energy it takes to wake up and hunt and tend the elders and beyond that, to have a life outside her duties, to talk to her friends and smile at her mother- every day takes an effort, and it is exhausting.

But nonetheless, she tries, and it seems to be working.

She knows she will be made a warrior soon.

For now though, she is not- but StarClan knows that when her Clanmates are in danger, she will fight like one. Yowls break through the brambles like birds rising to flight; silence, then a wild outbreak, and she hears Fireheart's cry raise to the sky on wheezing wings.

Tigerclaw gives the signal, and the ThunderClan patrol bursts out onto RiverClan territory.

She doesn't have time to take in the scene; she just launches herself at a dark-pelted warrior that she does not recognize and hopes for the best. As she sinks her teeth into his pelt, she tastes the telltale damp of river-water and the lingering oil of a fish-eater. _I'll show him how ThunderClan protects its own. _

Her claws thrash against his stomach, churning fur and flesh alike, and victory clamors through her like thunder, adrenaline drowning in the beat of blood in her ears.

That rush turns to ringing as the tom twists under her and lands a solid kick on her head. She stumbles back.

The RiverClan warrior does not relent. He's in front of her in a moment, balancing on his hind legs and batting at her face left and right, so fast she cannot pick a direction to dodge before the next one hits. Sandpaw crouches down, searching for any escape from his relentless onslaught- if she can get some space, she can fight, but there's no escape here.

She catches sight of an open space through the storm of blows and crouches even lower, bunching her leg muscles under her body as if hunting a mouse. Her opponent sweeps too far and in the moment of his disbalance, Sandpaw dashes past him.

"Get off of our territory!" The tom cries, whipping around to face her. "Thunderclan _rat._"

"ThunderClan fights to win," Sandpaw calls back. Her tail lashes as the two eye each other. Blood drips from a cut over Sandpaw's eye, and she resists the urge to wipe it away; it'll only give him an opening.

"Only cowards try to steal territory," the dark warrior accuses, his muzzle wrinkling into a snarl.

Sandpaw's snarls back. "We don't need to!"

At least, she hopes so.

Eyes narrowed to slits, Sandpaw sizes up her opponent. His eyes glow with fierce determination. _He's protecting his home, like I'm protecting my clanmates. _Can she be sure that the others weren't stealing prey? Graystripe would never, but what about Fireheart?

Could a kittypet ever really understand the Warrior Code?

Maybe not- but Sandpaw can, and that means fighting ThunderClan's battles no matter what she might think.

A battle cry tearing into the air, the RiverClan warrior launches himself at Sandpaw and the two go tumbling, a writhing mass of enmity, indistinguishable as they lash and claw for what is just. The grass flattens beneath them and a trail of fur and blood follows them as they clash.

"Surrender!" The tom hisses, his claws deep in her hind leg. Sandpaw finds the nearest thing- his tail- and bites, hard. He lets out a yowl and they roll again, further from the rest of the cats and into what feels like their own theatre.

The rushing in Sandpaw's ears is louder now. The ground seems to throb with the beating of her heart and all is reduced to that simple truth: blood in her veins, blood in her ears, blood on her claws. That which flows inside her is strong and fierce; that which is outside her must be multiplied til the battle is won.

"Sandpaw!" Fireheart's cry breaks through her reverie, and in the split second that she looks away, the RiverClan tom takes advantage of her distraction and goes to bat her head again. Her wide eyes catch the bone-white gleam on his claws, the sun caught in spires behind him as he rears, high and final.

Fireheart tumbles into the both of them, sending the RiverClan tom flying, and reaching to yank Sandpaw by the scruff, hard.

"Fireheart, what are you doing?" She gasps, her breath coming hard. "I can win my battles without you!" She whips around for her opponent, only to find a space where he had stood. "What-"

The rushing in her ears dies down, but a roar remains.

Her heart nearly stops when she sees a white paw grasping the edge of a cliff, only a tail length away from where she and the tom had been fighting. She thinks it _does_ stop when that paw disappears over the side, and the wail of her enemy is eaten by the river, his last cry taken by the rapids' churning teeth.

There is no fight after that.

Sandpaw feels like a ghost in her own body, bound only by the pain in her pelt and the invisible flames that lick across her paws. She has always burned hot, but never like this- the forest could come blazing down and she would not feel the coals.

It's that dark tom's blood, caught on her own claws, searing crime into her fur. _Whiteclaw. _She says the name again to herself. _Whiteclaw. _She won't forget.

"What was all of that?" She catches Tigerclaw's whisper to Fireheart and tilts her head towards them. She'd like to know that herself.

"It was the faster route…" Fireheart trails, a hollow look in his eye. "We thought it would let RiverClan know that WindClan was back."

"Well, they know now, don't they?" Tigerclaw hisses.

ThunderClan had been in the wrong. And a cat had died for it.

The patrol slinks back into camp, all the fervor drained from their paws by the long, painful walk back.

Sandpaw goes straight to the medicine cat's den. Yellowfang's sharp, spicy scent catches her nose and she is relieved to find the grumpy old cat at work organizing her herbs.

"You need something?" Yellowfang called back. "Or are you just here to enjoy blocking my sun?"

Sandpaw forced her fur flat. "There was a fight." It's all she says, but it's enough.

Yellowfang turns to face the apprentice. "Those are some deep cuts you've got there." Sandpaw nods. "Stay there. I'll get something for them." Brusque as ever, Yellowfang rummages deep into the crevices and comes out a mouthful of herbs. Yellowfang's eyes narrow as she licks a poultice over the deepest of Sandpaw's wounds.

"You alright?" Yellowfang asks.

Sandpaw nods again.

"Hm." Yellowfang raises a paw, and Sandpaw turns her head away. Yellowfang doesn't need her watching to put on cobwebs. A needlelike-jab makes Sandpaw let out a yelp as she jumps back- more in surprise than pain, but still enough movement to make her shoulder ache.

"What was that for!" Sandpaw cries, unable to erase the hurt on her face.

"When something hurts, you call out. You don't sit there in silence and endure it til it kills you- you let cats smarter and older than you help deal with it." Yellowfang's face sets into a scowl. "Now come here and let me do my job."

Huffing, Sandpaw reluctantly trots back to Yellowfang's side. "I'm fine."

Yellowfang raises her paw again in warning, a single claw unsheathed.

"Okay! Fine," Sandpaw concedes, and Yellowfang lowers her paw to start working on the next round of herbs. "StarClan. You didn't have to go and do that."

"You're stubborn, like me," Yellowfang says. "If nobody prodded you, no one would ever know that you're hurt."

"Maybe I like it that way." Sandpaw frowns. That's how warriors are meant to be, after all. Strong. "Besides, you can see all my wounds. I'll be fine."

"A little medicine cat, are you?" Yellowfang applies the marigold with a little more force than necessary, and Sandpaw cringes. "But you're right. As long as you don't go fighting any more battles for a bit, your body will heal just fine." The medicine cat meets Sandpaw's eyes, and she's surprised to find concern there. "It's not your body I'm worried about. Some wounds aren't on the body- and those are much harder to heal."

Sandpaw takes a deep breath. It shudders on the way out. "What do you mean?"

"The claws of your mind are sharper than the ones on your feet." Yellowfang stares at the ground, her eyes distant. "And they're eager to tear at you. They're poisoned like an adder's fang, and they leave hate to fester in your heart- not of an enemy, but of yourself."

"I don't know anything about that," Sandpaw says.

"Is that so?"

Sandpaw swallows.

"So nothing happened out there today? A clean, honest fight?"

Yellowfang's eyes are even and flat as stones. Sandpaw cannot see into them, read their depths for any answer Sandpaw can give other than the one Yellowfang wants.

"We won," Sandpaw allows. "That's all that matters."

The medicine cat levels her gaze at the Sandpaw. "I didn't peg you for weak, Sandpaw. But even old cats can be wrong. If you're done, you can go."

Sandpaw's heart wrenches like a bone popped out of its socket. "I am not _weak!_" She exclaims, her claws digging into the sandy floor of the cave.

Bristling like a floor of pine needles and twice as incendiary, Yellowfang brings her face close to Sandpaw's and hisses. "Then face your pain!" She gives Sandpaw more space. "Warriors don't run from a battle! They stand up and face it!"

"Well maybe they should run, sometimes. Maybe not every battle deserves to be fought." Sandpaw's eyes go wide. "I'm sorry- I shouldn't have said that-"

"And why not?" Yellowfang challenges.

"Because I have a duty to defend my Clan! And if a battle is being fought, my Clanmates are in danger-the warrior code-"

"The warrior code is good, but there are times where it demands blood that does not need to be spilled. Not every leader is just." Yellowfang pauses. "Do you regret fighting today?"

Sandpaw sets her jaw. "I...regret that the battle was fought. It was over nothing- if they'd just _talked,_" she mews. "No one had to die."

A sigh settles on Yellowfang's shoulders. "I see."

"But I don't regret fighting today," Sandpaw says, and she realizes as she speaks that she means it. "I did what I thought was right."

"That's all we can do." Yellowfang lays a tail on her shoulder in a comforting gesture that Sandpaw wouldn't have expected of the old she-cat. "You're young now. This is the time of your life where you do what you're told and trust that those leading you are making the right decisions- but soon, you'll have to start making those decisions yourself. And when you do, hold on to that. Always wonder if a battle is worth dying for before you walk into it, because you never know when a claw will slip or a rock will tumble." Images of Redtail's body flashed briefly in Sandpaw's mind. "It's not much, as far as advice goes, but it's all I can give you-when it's time for you to make those decisions, you can consider the choices of your Clan, but ultimately, you must do what you think is right. Sometimes that means mercy, even if everything you know tells you to strike."

Sandpaw presses her paws nervously against the ground. Her wounds sting, but Yellowfang's words sink into her now-patchy fur. "I understand. May I go?"

"Get some rest," Yellowfang murmurs, her eyes somewhere else. "And send in Fireheart, if you see him."

_Starclan,_ Sandpaw thinks. _He saved my life. _


	5. Chapter 5

Try as she might- and StarClan believe her, she's tried- she cannot help but find Fireheart tolerable, these next few moons. She starts to realize, now, sheepishly, that he is no phantom, no cataclysm- in truth, Fireheart is just a cat.

And a surprisingly decent one, at that.

When they are picked to patrol together, Sandpaw doesn't dread it.

The two of them meet at the gorse tunnel just as dawn starts to creep through the thorns. The moonhigh patrol returns, and Fireheart and Sandpaw step out. She lets him lead.

Head held high, mouth parted slightly in order to catch any drifting scents, Fireheart steps through the snow with an easy confidence, sure of his pawsteps despite being unable to see the ground below. He knows the territory, Sandpaw thinks with a pang, as well as I do. Maybe better. As a warrior, he has freedom that she does not.

"We'll start at Fourtrees and work our way along the border to Tallpines," Fireheart says.

"Alright."

The start off in silence, only the crunch of fresh snow betraying their journey.

Though the sun is rising, the air is almost dense with cold. If this were Dustpaw, she would chat to take her mind off of it. After a few more shivering moments, Sandpaw shakes her head.

"I've never seen Fourtrees in the snow," Sandpaw comments.

Fireheart looks over at her in surprise.

What kind of clanmate have I been? She thinks. That a warrior is shocked at basic decency. Her ears burn. I've asked so much of him and offered nothing in return.

They reach the top of the gorge.

"Which way now?" Fireheart asks.

Narrowing her eyes, Sandpaw takes him in. Patronizing? Taunting? No- Fireheart is rarely either of those things. This is how a warrior behaves, gently testing apprentices.

Stark against the white of the snow, Sandpaw begrudgingly admits that he doesn't just behave like a warrior- he looks like one, these days. His soft body has given way to a lean frame, his ginger coat hinting at hard earned muscle. The way he carries himself has changed as well; Firepaw walked with his head ducked, his eyes quick, like if he didn't take everything in, he would have nothing.

Fireheart holds his head high. His gaze, green and even, does not stray.

Sandpaw's mouth holds its line, but she feels it twitch at a grin. There's that danger again- if he leads, she will follow.

But he's just given her an opportunity for the opposite, and she's a rat if she won't take it.

"Of course I know the way." A mischievous glint in her eyes is all the hint that Fireheart gets before Sandpaw is off.

"Wh-" he starts. After a moment he recovers himself, and he's racing behind her. As the dawn breaks, the two of them dash, weaving in and out through the trees.

Snow sprays beneath her paws and she stretches her gait, longer, faster, devouring the land beneath her as she goes. Sandpaw's body aches with the feeling of clean exertion, no longer tainted by battle. Behind her, Fireheart pants into the frozen air.

Another burst of speed- she can keep it up.

The gap between them grows longer with every bound, but there's something to this that makes her feel shiver with how close he feels- every time she casts her eyes back to find his, it's like his pelt is against hers, his whiskers brushing her fur.

He runs with the same fervor, the same fierce joy, that Sandpaw does. She finds herself mirrored in his labored breath, his wild smile, his tenacious eyes.

But still, she has the upper hand- and this is a rare delight.

Over the fallen log she leaps, her body stretching out to its full length, and then she lies very still.

Fireheart comes crashing over. Before he's found his paws, Sandpaw leaps, catching him and sending him skidding.

She leaps back, her tail lashing playfully. The cold of the air and the warmth in her body are at almost electric odds, and she wants nothing more than to let the moment expand until her lungs are bursting with it.

Fireheart makes a counter-attack of his own and the two of them turn over and over in the snow. Whatever closeness she had imagined in their race, she feels in full truth now. Their breath mingles in dancing fog, and Sandpaw somehow fails to be disappointed when Fireheart ends up pinning her in the end.

They stay like that for a second.

Pinned like this, Sandpaw feels light.

For once, the world rests somewhere else. Her pain is still there, but it is quieter than the pound of her heart.

It is with surprising familiarity that she meows. "Get off, you great lump!"

"If you insist," Fireheart returns, stepping off her with a good-natured arrogance.

Sandpaw rolls her eyes and shakes her pelt clean. A look at Fireheart reveals him trying to do the same, and failing miserably. His pelt traps the snow like the boughs of a fir tree, no matter how he tries.

Letting out a chuckle, Sandpaw gives him an obvious onceover. "You look like you've been in a snowstorm."

"No thanks to you!"

They set off again, in an easier quiet now, their good moods bolstered by the warmth of the rising sun.

When they reach Fourtrees, it's a different world that Sandpaw's ever seen.

"I didn't realize…" she starts. "It looks…"

The four oaks that mark the gathering place are laced in frost, patterns of ice that have an unspoken rhythm to them as they weave in and out those ancient branches. The grass looks untouched- as if this gathering will be the first to break its silver blades and Sandpaw is witnessing the secret of something new. The leafbare has rewritten this place in whole.

"I didn't realize that the snow could change so much," Sandpaw breathes.

But it has. And seeing Fireheart's open look of wonder as he crests the ridge beside her, she wonders what other changes this season might bring.

For the first time, she wonders what it might be like to let herself be pulled by his energy, by that eager friendliness and persistence. She is growing tired of fighting against it.

The fire that burns in her has blazed hot for so long. She wonders if she can let herself rekindle more gently this time, and bask in the freedom to be warm.


	6. Chapter 6

So they are friends now. Of some sort- she's not sure what kinds of lines Starclan has strung between them, but they are there. Sometimes she thinks she can see them if she looks just right, like cobwebs glimmering under dew.

But whatever they have is tenuous, and Sandstorm has always been clumsy.

"I see the prey's been running well," Fireheart comments as Sandstorm steps into camp. "Though that doesn't look like it's running anywhere soon."

Sandstorm gives an internal groan. In her mouth she drags a pigeon- or most of one. "Caught mid flight." She mutters. "Lost a wing." Longtail hasn't stopped giving her shit for it the whole way back.

"And prey is prey," Sandstorm says, as she drops the pigeon into the fresh-kill pile and spits out a mouthful of feathers. Birds are delicious, but she'd take a fat squirrel any day- more of it in her stomach, less in her teeth.

"I'm sure someone will eat it," Fireheart meows. "Maybe you can convince the kits that pigeons are _meant _to look like that."

"Is that what you tell them about kittypet fur?" She starts off, a quiet grin on her lips.

"Hey!" Fireheart scrambles after. "What's wrong with my fur?"

"Nothing, of course." She pauses. "It's just that a cat couldn't be blamed for mistaking you for a squirrel-" She pauses again to look him up and down. -not much bigger than one, either." Her voice trails into a purr at the look of Fireheart's face. "But maybe you're right about the pigeon. I'll eat it and save the nice prey for someone else."

"Oh!" Fireheart brightens at this. "I'll get something too. Wait here."

They're only a few paces away from the fresh-kill pile. Nonetheless, Sandstorm waits, and Fireheart comes trotting gallantly back with Sandstorm's pigeon and a brown mouse clutched in his jaw.

They're sharing a meal. Of course they are. This is what clanmates do.

Sandstorm cannot help the part of her that twitches away as Fireheart comes near. It says that this is wrong, that Fireheart is an inexplicable enemy. The instinct leaves her stomach roiling.

The two of them stand there for a moment, eyes locked and limbs frozen like they await some warm wind to send them back to life. Sandstorm is the first to look away, and Fireheart does the same, giving an awkward laugh around the prey in his mouth.

Fireheart places the fresh-kill down and lowers himself after. "Not a bad chance to catch your breath, this little spot of sun. These bones need it."

"You sound like a cranky elder," Sandstorm meows.

"And maybe I have a right!" He turns to lick his shoulder, but a quiet light glows in his eyes. "Do you know what it's like trying to keep Cloudkit alive? I look away for a second and the kit is two steps from impaling himself on a bush because he wants so badly to eat a _death berry_. They're called _Death _berries, Sandstorm."

"Ah, correction," Sandstorm says. "You don't sound like an elder. You sound like a cranky _queen _."

"That kit is half fluff, but the other half is pure evil, you mark my words-"

"No respect for authority? In Fireheart's kin?" Sandstorm turns her head towards an invisible audience, tail flicking in amusement. "Call the clans! We must let them know!" She meets his eyes. "I can only imagine what you got into as a kit. I'm sure the twolegs had their paws full as well."

Fireheart takes a polite bite of his mouse instead of answering- which tells Sandstorm all she needs to know.

This- it's all easy.

It's all hard.

Sandstorm can't stop to think about it, because we she does, she finds herself plummeting into the hollow that she has carved below her ribs. It is a place, she has decided, where she is no longer allowed to go. When she keeps it hollow and cold, she can bear it.

But every now and again it brushes up against her and reminds her that though she is no longer a creature fanged with grief, the venom is never far from the heart. She takes a bite of her bird. She's not hungry.

"In all honesty, though, I am tired," Fireheart murmurs. He eats thoughtfully now, his gaze elsewhere as he stares across the clearing. "And I can't just sleep it off."

"Why not?" Sandstorm asks. "I'm sure Bluestar would let you take a morning to yourself if you explained the situation with Cloudkit-"

"It's not just Cloudkit, though." Fireheart turns his eyes down.

"Oh," Sandstorm says. "Well, a good night's sleep can't hurt. You should still talk to Bluestar."

"Bluestar's had enough of talking to me lately."

Sandstorm can't read his expression but she gets plenty from his tone.

She changes tack. "Maybe we could go hunting together later- you and me. It'd be a nice break from all the patrols lately."

Fireheart sighs and lays his head down on his paws. "I don't think I have it in me- I just-" he cuts himself off. "There's too many secrets. I'm so tired."

"Maybe you should stop poking your nose into foxholes if you don't want to get bit," she snaps. Then blinks at herself, because she doesn't know why she's done it.

"Thanks for that."

Fireheart stands, stretches, his tail low and his eyes clouded with worry. What for, Sandstorm desperately wants to know. And cannot bring herself to ask.

Casual friendship she can do. _No more than clanmates should be_. But confession, trusting in one another, sorting through the thoughts that they can barely speak aloud? Sandstorm takes a step away before she can stop herself. She doesn't even trust Dustpelt with that, let alone some over-friendly kittypet.

"I'm-"

"It's okay," Fireheart says, quickly.

_Foolish_, Sandstorm chides herself. For thinking this would be easy- they had felt like friends in the snow and the warmer moons since, but it's not unreasonable that Fireheart would want to push their simple friendship into something more.

Well, he's learned his lesson.

"I don't mean to unload on you- it's just that Graystripe has been gone more lately, and I'm…" he stops, his eyes finding a spot on the horizon again. "I need to talk things through to _get _them, I guess. Not everyone's like that."

Sandstorm's heart moves into her throat. "I'm not," she says. The idea of it burns on the way down.

"I know." Defeated- "I know you."

Fireheart's words linger in the air for a long moment as Sandstorm tastes them. The idea of Fireheart seeing her- she can't quite figure out how it feels. Tangible and tugging, like a burr stuck in her fur, like paws digging in soft earth, like the last feather stuck between her teeth- it's uncomfortable, almost, but she can feel a hint of something just beyond, fresh and clear as relief.

"I'm not sure you do," she says. A paw in the water. "No offense, I mean-"

"Huh," Fireheart says.

"What?"

"Just surprised. I feel like I do- I mean, we were apprentices together, and lately we've been talking more. I've felt like we understand each other."

The fur starts to rise on Sandstorm's pelt. She flattens it, hastily and tries to look disinterested. "We get along. That's not the same thing."

"I'm sorry," Fireheart purrs. "I didn't realize we were talking about plunging into the depths of our souls here."

Sandstorm meets his eyes. "Who do _you _think I am, then?" She doesn't let her thoughts linger on the enormity of her words. "If you're such an expert."

"Well," Fireheart says. He sits back down to think about it, turns his head to the side and watches a squirrel scuttle from one branch to the next. "I think you're complicated, for starts."

"Acute."

"And quick to speak. Let me be a little ponderous with this- I want to get it right."

Sandstorm inclines her head, but doesn't interrupt.

"You're a lot of things, Sandstorm- and not all of them at once. I remember how you were when I arrived, when I thought you had the personality of a pricklebush-" Sandstorm opens her mouth to object but a look from Fireheart quiets her. "But your anger never felt rash. It felt clearly judged, like you were choosing it over something else- that you were choosing me to be angry at." He shakes his head. "I don't hold it against you. I hope you know that."

She doesn't trust herself to respond. "You're too smart for your own good, too rational about the world to figure out what your place is in it when things are chaos. You care about right and wrong- and you'll beat yourself up about it until you get it perfect, even if things never are. You can be uptight, and sarcastic, and absolute in your judgement." Fireheart pauses to take a breath. He doesn't meet Sandstorm's eyes- she couldn't bear it if he did. "But you're a light in the dark when you let yourself go, and in the end you turn your sharp tongue to prodding people in the right direction- and when you're sure of the right thing, Starclan help the cat that stands in your path."

A heat crawls up Sandstorms fur, uncomfortable pricking as his eyes linger on her. "And," he says.

"I think I've heard enough-"

"And I think you're brilliant. I think you're bold. And I think you care- about me, about the clan, about everything- more than you want to."

Sandstorm stands abruptly, as if she can shake off the weight of his gaze. "I think you're reading too far into things," she meows.

"Oh?"

"I'm not- I'm just a warrior." She draws her shoulders higher. "I'm not...anything like that. I'm just a warrior," she repeats.

Fireheart shrugs. "Then maybe I'm not as good at reading character as I want to believe. But," he says softly. "I do think you're something more." He touches her shoulder with his tail and goes, winding off towards the medicine cat's den.

Sandstorm's pelt feels raw, somehow, like her fur has fallen out and any moment the clan will turn and realize what she's lost.

The cat Fireheart described was not her- that cat was too much. _Brilliant_, he had called her, and that was the least of it.

Sandstorm wolfs down the last few bites of her bird and walks towards the warriors' den. It is only after several minutes and many rough licks to her pelt that it will lie down flat again. The things that cat said- Fireheart, she realizes, is paying more attention than Sandstorm had ever thought. Maybe more than she's comfortable with.

No one should spend so much time puzzling her, let alone Fireheart, whom she has only just started to think of as a friend. No one should pick out the edges where things don't quite fit and mining through until the true ore of the her is out, iron jutting into the wind. And that's the other problem of it- she is, in the end, too much of iron to be the golden warrior of Fireheart's words. She is too hard, too rusted. She is not so foolish as to think of herself as kind.

Maybe one day.

Fireheart is good- she realizes. In a way that she isn't. He is too smart to really see her as gold- but he is smart, and _good _enough to speak to the side of Sandstorm that wants.

When she closes her eyes, she hears his voice. _A light in the dark. _

Someone has seen her and told her that she is good- someone has seen her and told her that they believe she can be better. And it is Fireheart, of all cats. The apprentice in her yowls at the idea but a firmer, fuller voice tamps down her caterwauling heart. _A light in the dark_, she thinks. _That's what I will be. _

And when she is, Fireheart will see it.


End file.
